Arrival Day: Oklahoma City

Fun fact: Oklahoma City tests their tornado sirens every Saturday at noon. It was a little jarring to hear that sound in this place.

Now bring me that horizon.

I landed at 10a.m. marveling that in the exactly five hours from when I woke up to when the plane's wheels hit the ground I had gotten my act together, gone to Skokie, headed to O'Hare, hopped on a flight, and landed. Sometimes it takes a step or two outside the realm of normal routine to realize how far one can go in so little time. I finally had the chance to meet Caryn, and she told me that unfortunately the meteorological setup had deteriorated. We wouldn't be chasing after all, so we were staying in OKC for the night as initially planned. I had 7 hours to kill- hopefully this would be the quietest down time of the trip.

So I did what any rational person who has newly begun a much-needed vacation would do and found some good Mexican food (thanks for the recommendation, Kelly Fitzgerald!), a margarita, and a nap in my hotel room- in that order. I'm the kind of person who works hard to get stuff done, and holy moly is it weird to have a hotel room with cable and a king-sized bed all to myself; without pup/aquarium/Betta/gecko relying on my care or apartment-oriented things that need to be done. I'm a nurturer who is bad at sitting still; I rejoice when I have people and animals to care for- but it's weird when I don't have that dynamic. I'm not the best at taking a break when there's any chance that responsibility may come calling- hence the strangeness of relaxing on my own in a hotel room for the afternoon.

Eventually I headed to the hotel's fitness center in search of some endorphins, and I'll be joining the rest of the group at 6 for orientation. It will be nice to reacquaint myself with Silver Lining Tours' chase guidelines, and I'm excited to meet my tripmates. It helps to befriend the people you're going to be stuck with in a van for the next 4 days!

Storms come in all shapes, sizes, strengths, and durations. They can take form in a ragged group, coalesce into a bow echo, or very rarely form into a supercell- the kind that typically produces tornadoes. Turbulent weather can be glorious or disastrous- the impact varies. Thunder stimulates nitrogen in the soil, and sometimes the rain can be a blessing. The air after a storm is often cooler and clear. Things smell fresh; a sigh of relief. If the beauty, unpredictability, and tempestuousness of thunderstorms isn't a metaphor for romance, I don't know what is. Only 1 in 1000 thunderstorms produces a tornado, and I'm hoping for a tornadic supercell thunderstorm that defies the odds of the apps and algorithms that rule my generation's love lives. I guess you can say I have a date with nature over the next few days- here's hoping it meets me in the middle after I've come all this way.

Music: The Middle, Zedd Maren Morris, Grey
Mood: Thoughtful